Environmental issues

Ever since I arrived in Kampala, I never really came across a detailed conversation or discussion about the environmental issues and the mainstreamed notion of Global Warming. The only time that I can remember talking about Global Warming was that one time when I asked when the raining season ends in Uganda, other than that I cannot think of any other conversations about the environment. To me it seems like the people of Uganda are consumed with other issues in their lives (different diseases, increase in food prices and etc) that they fail to encounter the importance of environmental issues that people out West are constantly distressing about.

Although people do not pay enough attention to environmental issues here in Kampala, every day that I finish a bottle of mineral water, I am reminded of the lack of attention to such issues. For the purpose of this assignment, I asked my land lady about recycling in Uganda. She said that in Kampala, there are no separate bins for recycling; in fact there are “private” companies that suppose to go through the garbage to avoid the burning of the plastic bottles. She was as skeptical as you probably are right now but she didn’t seem to be really disturbed by it.
Uganda was identified as the “Pearl of Africa” by Churchill…I am pretty sure he was not referring to today’s downtown Kampala. The city is polluted by car and noise pollution. Almost all taxis send out enough CO2s that can increase your chances of getting lung cancer by more than 50%. The most I have seen people do is to pull their windows up so they won’t DIRECTLY inhale the pollution. Quite a few times I have been laughed at by people for complaining about the amount of CO2s that I inhale on regular basis. But can you really blame them for making fun of me?

At situations like this, I keep forgetting that most of the residences of Kampala are so consumed and troubled by their day to day lives that they fail to encounter greater issues that is affecting people on a larger scale, i.e. the environmental issues. Aside from people’s enthusiasm for Obama, I haven’t seen people being too consumed about world news. Even though they read news papers almost religiously, they fail to pay too much attention to what is happening outside of their continent. Some may call it ignorance, but to me, I think that it is due to their troubled lives. When a family is worried about finding food for themselves or the threat of HIV, I am pretty sure they couldn’t care any less about issues that might affect them on a larger scale.

Going back to environmental issues, I think that the struggle that people face on a day to day basis, fails them to pay any attention to the environment. However, since consumption is quite limited due to people’s lack of capital and access, the exploitation of the environment is happening in a more sustainable pace than any where in the Western world.